Do you use let's encrypt?

I've said recently that pervasive surveillance is wrong. I don't think anyone from the NSA should have a leadership position in the development or deployment of Internet communications, because their interests are at odds with the interest of the rest of the Internet. But someone at the NSA is in exactly such a position. They ought to step down.

The IRTF is divided into issue-specific research groups, each of which has a Chair or Co-Chairs who have "wide discretion in the conduct of Research Group business", and are tasked with organizing the research and discussion, ensuring that the group makes progress on the relevant issues, and communicating the general sense of the results back to the rest of the IRTF and the IETF.

I've seconded Trevor's proposal, and asked Kevin directly to step down and to provide us with information about any attempts by the NSA to interfere with or subvert recommendations coming from these standards bodies.

Below is my letter in full:

From: Daniel Kahn Gillmor <dkg@fifthhorseman.net>
To: cfrg@ietf.org, Kevin M. Igoe <kmigoe@nsa.gov>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2013 16:29:13 -0500
Subject: Re: [Cfrg] Requesting removal of CFRG co-chair
On 12/20/2013 11:01 AM, Trevor Perrin wrote:
> I'd like to request the removal of Kevin Igoe from CFRG co-chair.
Regardless of the conclusions that anyone comes to about Dragonfly
itself, I agree with Trevor that Kevin M. Igoe, as an employee of the
NSA, should not remain in the role of CFRG co-chair.
While the NSA clearly has a wealth of cryptographic knowledge and
experience that would be useful for the CFRG, the NSA is apparently
engaged in a series of attempts to weaken cryptographic standards and
tools in ways that would facilitate pervasive surveillance of
communication on the Internet.
The IETF's public position in favor of privacy and security rightly
identifies pervasive surveillance on the Internet as a serious problem:
https://www.ietf.org/media/2013-11-07-internet-privacy-and-security.html
The documents Trevor points to (and others from similar stories)
indicate that the NSA is an organization at odds with the goals of the IETF.
While I want the IETF to continue welcoming technical insight and
discussion from everyone, I do not think it is appropriate for anyone
from the NSA to be in a position of coordination or leadership.
----
Kevin, the responsible action for anyone in your position is to
acknowledge the conflict of interest, and step down promptly from the
position of Co-Chair of the CFRG.
If you happen to also subscribe to the broad consensus described in the
IETF's recent announcement -- that is, if you care about privacy and
security on the Internet -- then you should also reveal any NSA activity
you know about that attempts to subvert or weaken the cryptographic
underpinnings of IETF protocols.
Regards,
--dkg

I'm aware that an abdication by Kevin (or his removal by the IETF chair) would probably not end the NSA's attempts to subvert standards bodies or weaken encryption. They could continue to do so by subterfuge, for example, or by private influence on other public members. We may not be able to stop them from doing this in secret, and the knowledge that they may do so seems likely to cast a pall of suspicion over any IETF and IRTF proceedings in the future. This social damage is serious and troubling, and it marks yet another cost to the NSA's reckless institutional disregard for civil liberties and free communication.

But even if we cannot rule out private NSA influence over standards bodies and discussion, we can certainly explicitly reject any public influence over these critical communications standards by members of an institution so at odds with the core principles of a free society.

Kevin M. Igoe, please step down from the CFRG Co-chair position.

And to anyone (including Kevin) who knows about specific attempts by the NSA to undermine the communications standards we all rely on: please blow the whistle on this kind of activity. Alert a friend, a colleague, or a journalist. Pervasive surveillance is an attack on all of us, and those who resist it are heroes.

As noted on the CFRG webpage, there has been a change of chairs on the research group: David McGrew stepped down as co-chair and Kenny Patterson and Alexey Melnikov were added as co-chairs. In practice, Patterson and Melnikov appear to be the most active chairs right now, though Igoe is also still listed as a co-chair.